MARKHOR

The question at the heart of Concrete Valley, says director Antoine Bourges (Fail to Appear), is “not how can we stay together, but how can we change together?”

VARIETY: MAD Solutions Acquires ‘Concrete Valley,’ About a Syrian Family Living in Toronto, in Multiple Territories (EXCLUSIVE)

MAD Solutions has acquired the distribution rights to “Concrete Valley” for multiple territories. The film focuses on a Syrian family living in Toronto. The film, from Canadian-French filmmaker Antoine Bourges, premiered at Toronto Film Festival, before travelling to Berlinale, and it just screened at Jeonju. The writers are Bourges and Teyama Alkamli. The producer is Shehrezade Mian at Markhor Pictures.

ARSENAL: Building and Building CONCRETE VALLEY’s Slow Passage

In contradistinction to the first word of its title, Antoine Bourges’ CONCRETE VALLEYopens in a forest. Initially, it appears unpeopled, inhabited instead by trees, shrubbery, and unseen cicadas, who fill the air with their eerie hush. Then, a man appears, walking through the foliage. He finds a path, stops, and stares. While his contemplation of the location suggests wayfinding, we learn later this figure—the film’s protagonist Rashid (Hussam Douhna)—was simply going for a walk; he wasn’t lost, but wandering.

Playback: Infinity Pool, Concrete Valley headed to Berlinale

Making its international premiere in the Forum program at Berlinale is Antoine Bourges’ Concrete Valley, produced by Shehrezade Mian of Markhor Pictures and Meelad Moaphi. The film had its world bow at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

Playback Film Summit: Inside the making of three Canadian films (11/2022)

Pandemic production delays became an asset for Concrete Valley (General Use, Markhor Pictures), allowing director and co-writer Antoine Bourges more time to pull together one of the most essential parts of the project: the casting of non-professional actors.

Playback Film Summit: Navigating financing challenges (11/2022)

Lauren Grant, founder of Clique Pictures, moderated a “Financing Film” panel on the first of the two-day virtual summit on Tuesday (Nov. 15). The discussion also featured Ken Dhaliwal, a partner at Dentons Canada; Damon D’Oliveira, producer at Conquering Lion Pictures; Shehrezade Mian, producer and founder of Markhor Pictures; and David Zitzerman, a partner at Goodmans.

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: A TALE OF IMMIGRANT LIFE IN TORONTO (09/2022)

In Concrete Valley, director Antoine Bourges chronicles a family’s attempts to rebuild their lives after fleeing war torn Syria.

POV MAGAZINE: Concrete Valley Review: Straddling Two Worlds (09/ 2022)

Thorncliffe Park occupies a strange place in Toronto geography. This concrete valley juts into the lush greenery of the Don Parklands that engulf the Don Valley Parkway. Located north of the Danforth and in the east pocket of Leaside, Thorncliffe Park straddles two relatively well-to-do neighbourhoods. The apartment complexes in the park house a sizable population of immigrants and new Canadians. Near Leaside, independent grocery stores and places of worship sit tucked amid a burgeoning hodgepodge of big box stores and parking spots. It’s like a city within a city in which residents can connect with their native language and culture while struggling to climb the invisible walls that surround it.

BLOG TO: A movie about immigrating to thorncliffe park is getting its world premiere in toronto (09/2022)

A new movie by filmmaker Antoine Bourges tells the story of a family from Syria that struggles to adjust to life in Canada after five years in Toronto's Thorncliffe Park neighbourhood, and it's getting its world premiere at TIFF next week.

GLOBAL NEWS: TIFF films highlights newcomer community (09/2022)

Antoine Bourges is a Toronto-based director who is premiering his film ‘Concrete Valley,’ at TIFF this year! Focusing on themes of belonging and readjusting to a new community after immigration, Bourges joins Candace Daniel to discuss being both a TIFF director and attendee of the film fest.

TIFF: Excited Filmmakers, Party Hosts Embrace Film Fest In-Person Return (09/2022)

“You cannot launch a festival film digitally. You need to build up hype in person. You need to meet people in person to be able to forge relationships to launch your film,” Markhor Pictures producer Shehrezade Mian, who is launching Antoine Bourges’ Concrete Valley immigrant drama in Toronto as part of the Wavelengths sidebar, told The Hollywood Reporter.

MUBI: Toronto Dispatch: Health/Care (09/2022)

From TIFF, Canadian films by Sophie Jarvis, Antoine Bourges, and Graham Foy, along with "Corsage" and "All the Beauty and the Bloodshed."

Toronto life: Concrete Valley’s Antoine Bourges on the idea of immigration as a parallel life (09/2022)

Concrete Valley—which premiered at TIFF yesterday—introduces viewers to Rashid, a recent immigrant to Canada who struggles to build a new life while holding on to the remnants of his old one. Its director, UBC department of theatre and film professor Antoine Bourges, shares how the film came to be set in Toronto’s Thorncliffe Park and how its plot illustrates the parallel lives that immigrants often feel they could—or should—have lived.

CINEMASCOPE MAG: TIFF 2022 | Concrete Valley (Antoine Bourges, Canada) — Wavelengths

Despite having arrived in Canada five years ago from Syria, Rashid (Hussam Douhna) and his wife Fahra (Amani Ibrahim) have not entirely settled in. Whatever promises a country founded in Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water gave them, they wake up without working hot water. Thorncliffe Park, their home, is a part of Toronto in which high rises are easily spotted from the eastbound expressway out of the city, nestled next to the woods surrounding the Don River; it’s often the first place recent immigrants live.

NOW MAGAZINE: 10 Canadian films to watch at TIFF 2022 (08/2022)

Fail To Appear director Bourges collaborated with co-writer Teyama Alkamli to create a portrait of Toronto’s Thorncliffe Park area, an immigrant hub overlooking the DVP, in yet another film that blends fact and fiction. It stars Hussam Douhna and Amani Ibrahim as a Syrian doctor and his wife who immigrate to Canada and struggle to find their bearings but help people in the community, even as their own fragile marriage needs tending to.

PLAYBACK MAGAZINE: TIFF unveils over a dozen Canadian titles for Discovery, Wavelengths programs (08/2022)

Making its world premiere in the Wavelengths program, which features daring and visionary works, include Concrete Valley (pictured left), the sophomore feature by writer-director Antoine Bourges (Fail to Appear). Another Talent to Watch recipient, it’s produced by Shehrezade Mian and Meelad Moaphi and set in an immigrant community in Toronto’s Thorncliffe Park neighbourhood.

PLAYBACK MAGAZINE: EAVE announces participants for program for racialized producers (03/2022)

The program, valued at about $30,000 per participant, helps creators learn skills in enhanced revenue streams, distribution, export and co-production with an aim to facilitate professional cross-border relationships. The workshops cover everything from pitching and script writing, to financial and company planning.

PLAYBACK MAGAZINE: TIFF ’21 Filmmaker Lab, Talent Accelerator and Rising Stars picks (09/2021)

Three of the Canadian Filmmaker Lab participants are also getting a year-long experience through the Talent Accelerator with a goal of fast-tracking their development. Ajao, El Abed and Dawit will participate along with producer Shehrezade Mian (Concrete Valley) and writers Yasmine Mathurin (who won a special jury prize at Hot Docs for 2021′s One of Ours) and Mayumi Yoshida (known for her role in The Man in the High Castle) have been selected to participate.

OYE YEAH NEWS: Exclusive Interview with Award-Winning Canadian-Iranian Film Maker Meelad Moaphi (12/2019)

“In the very early stages, I did strongly consider shooting the script in Canada but it soon became very apparent that the result would be too artificial and unconvincing unless it were filmed on location. The Canadian landscape and architecture is very unlike the world in which the narrative is set. The original script had nothing to do with Pakistan — it was set between Afghanistan and Iran. Due to various practical issues, however, I wasn’t able to conduct the shoot either in Iran or in Afghanistan, so that’s when a friend and colleague, Shehrezade Mian — who eventually came on board as an Executive Producer — suggested I adapt it for Pakistan.

GLOBE AND MAIL: Remember these names a year or two from now: Telefilm announces new batch of Talent to Watch filmmakers (06/2019)

This year’s Talent to Watch productions include the immigration drama Concrete Valley from writer-director Antoine Bourges, whose mid-length film Fail to Appearimpressed critics at its Vancouver International Film Festival premiere in 2017.

GLOBE AND MAIL: Canadian drama Concrete Valley delivers an uncanny level of richly rewarding cinema

CRITERION COLLECTION: CONCRETE VALLEY TRAILER PREMIERE